


Affection

by Stonehill



Category: RWBY
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Atlas, Recovery, Romance, coming to terms with all that has happened, introspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-18 12:01:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29857764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stonehill/pseuds/Stonehill
Summary: And for a moment, for a passing moment, she sees the path home disintegrate, shatter and scatter like golden rose petals, until all that is left is the boy before her, the beautiful boy that had become the home she’d tried to return to before she had ever realised it.When Oscar looks up, his solemn expression falls away and he smiles indulgently. “Why are you crying?”
Relationships: Oscar Pine/Ruby Rose
Comments: 16
Kudos: 52





	Affection

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for opening this!  
> For anybody reading this later, this is written after volume 8 chapter 10, but not before the release of chapter 11.  
> Have fun!!

Affection

Ruby cries.

She’s sitting at the back of a room in the Schnee manor, behind her sister, behind her team, behind her friends, facing Oscar, and Nora and Penny.

Golden sunlight streams in through the room, falling just short of the boy at the end of the row of beds and casting deep blue shadows over his face as he recounts the events that had transpired during his twice separation from the others. His confrontation with Ironwood. His fall. His kidnapping by Salem. The explosion.

There is deadly quiet as he recounts the details. It creates a haunting silence that drains the colour out of the room and out of their faces, as they take in his story.

The war for Atlas is over.

Ironwood is dead.

Salem has retreated.

Peace reigns, but it is a battered and beaten peace, a breath held between one heartbeat and the next.

It doesn’t feel like victory.

It feels like one more barefoot step on a path made of broken glass—eternal and growing ever darker, with the end trapped in purest night.

And Ruby cries.

Golden tears stream quietly down her cheeks from swimming silver eyes.

She cries for the loss of life. For the loss of trust. She cries for the unnecessary conflict between her and Oscar, between her and her sister, that had ensured she wouldn’t know of his experiences before they had transpired. She cries for his pain, for Oz’ pain, for her own inability to help where she had been most needed.

She cries for another betrayal.

For a nearly lost love.

She cries because she remembers the way the hound had thrown her around like a rag doll, cries because she understands at least that fragment of his experiences.

The rest she can only imagine.

Discussion breaks out after the first shock has worn off. Outrage and hurt on Oscar’s behalf comes first. Expressed rage and disappointment that Ironwood had not faced a worse end, than the death Qrow had ended up providing.

Then come the questions: what do we do now? And—

“What about Oz? What do we do about him?”

Ruby rubs her eyes quickly, quietly.

“Leave him be,” she says, her voice trembling with emotions she’s still fighting to bury.

Jaune, her sister, everyone, turn to look at her in surprise—from the fact that she’s remained quiet until now, or at her opinion, she cannot tell.

“We’ve all seen what Salem is, what Ironwood were, capable of,” she continues before anyone can interrupt her. “We might not agree with his methods, but we all know why he resorted to that level of… control now.”

She tries not to think about her own life, the lies she’s lived, and the Hound’s host staring back at her with empty silver eyes.

Ruby tries not to wonder how much Oz has shaped the world to keep the daughter of Summer Rose out of Salem’s clutches.

“And Oscar already told us that he has no intentions of returning to that path, isn’t that right?”

She meets green eyes across the distance. Oscar smiles with exhaustion and nods.

Her sister sighs and pulls her fingers through her fringe. “Fine,” she allows, and adds in a lower voice “I’m so tired at being angry and arguing with people.”

Blake ruffles her hair in praise, and Ruby, already emotional, gets up to kiss her sister’s forehead.

“Thank you,” she whispers, closing her eyes and enjoying the warmth that always emanates from Yang.

Ruby feels so cold.

“I’m sorry,” Yang says, pressing gentle pads against Ruby’s cheek.

And the rest of the hurt washes away. The rest of that loneliness washes out of her, the loneliness that her sister had created in her; standing so far out of reach, refusing to listen, blaming Ruby for things she had had so little control over.

Maybe… maybe if she had been Ozpin she would’ve been able to talk Ironwood down.

But Ruby is just Ruby. She is barely seventeen. She still gets in over her head, reckless, impulsive. And communication skills take a lifetime to grow—comparing her to Oz feels like cheating.

The sun passes quickly out of the sky this far up north, reminding the others of grumbling stomachs and itching wounds. As they break up camp, Ruby sits down beside an already sleeping Oscar.

His face is pale under the tan. Dark lines betray his lack of sleep under the eye that isn’t blackened, and though the soot has been cleaned off his face, she can see finger marks pressed into his cheek, bruises from a cruel lover. His hair is singed and she knows that his ribs are broken, that there are bones and torn muscle that have needed Jaune’s and Klein’s care.

Ruby gently grasps his hand and rests her forehead against the knuckles. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there,” she whispers, voice full of pain and sorrow.

Far away she can hear Penny call her name and Nora shush her, but she is too caught up in the freezing storm of her own emotions to respond to her friends. Tears trickle from her eyes again to wet his clear, uncovered skin, and Ruby falls asleep like that, her heart too broken to stay present and wait for Oscar to wake once again.

* * *

The loss of gravity’s hold on her steals Ruby back to consciousness. 

She opens her eyes to see Oscar’s bed carefully falling away below her, moonlight cascading in through the window to cradle his soft and tired expression in concentrated cools.

It’s only when their eyes meet that her brain clicks into place and she yelps, flailing helplessly. The magic breaks, and Oscar only just has enough time to pull his legs out of his way before Ruby lands with a thump! on his mattress.

“What was that for?” she hisses in the near-darkness.

His face flushes crimson, and he looks towards the ceiling for a moment as if praying for help. Only to scowl at the response.

“You looked uncomfortable,” he explains, finally, still avoiding her gaze. “I just thought you’d sleep better on the couch.”

And Ruby—

Ruby is breathless. Her heart stills in her chest at how cute he is, at how his soft care hasn’t vanished from his person, the core of him she adores so much.

And then she’s laughing, loud and silly and so, so relieved. He hasn’t changed. He watches the world with a calmer, more solemn expression, one she recognises from another, but Oscar still puts others before himself. He is still selfless and good to the point of ridiculousness.

And he still flusters easily.

“Ruby!” He hisses with admonition, waving his hands and looking with real distress from her to Nora and Penny, sleeping soundly still.

When she doesn’t immediately accommodate him, he sighs in exasperation, waves his hand and curtains fall from the ceiling, encaging them in a little enclosure that blocks out the world.

That steals Ruby’s laughter and she watches the magic show with wonder, admiring the practical application and easy manner of conjuring. The cloth is dark and green, with silver and golden roses intertwining, reflecting the light of small orange fireflies.

Oscar sighs in relief. “At least with this we won’t disturb the others.”

Ruby smiles and ignores the subtle criticism.“I’ve only ever seen maidens do elemental magic.”

“Oz says maidens are trapped by the Semblance system and lack creativity.”

The immediate deadpan response has her frowning at him. Oz is a merciless teacher with thousands of years of experience, and after seeing him in action she knows exactly how precise his observations, his criticisms, and his lessons are. But it still doesn’t sit well with her to hear her friend criticised like that.

“That’s unfair,” she counters softly, and Oscar smiles.

“Yeah,” he agrees, a sigh in his lips. “The world forces us to think in terms of combat and survival, rather than in terms of practical application and endless possibilities. Look at you,” he adds. “How long did it take for you to realise your semblance wasn’t made for combat but for transportation?”

Ruby smirks. She knows the response he expects from her, and she’s willing to give it, to help him lighten the mood, but...but the observation brings a melancholy to her that catches her off guard and her smile vanishes.

Someone.

“Maybe I always knew,” she murmurs, voice far away.

She can see someone’s smile, but it is hidden by summer sunlight, so bright it washes out the features. It’s not her mother, yet it feels like home.

“There was someone I wanted to run to...”

Desperately.

It clings to her like a second skin, presses down on her mind and her heart and her soul, and Ruby—

A hand clamps down on her wrist and Oscar holds her to the present.

When Ruby looks down at their hands in confusion, she can see that she had begun to scatter. Miniature green lightning crawls across her skin and rose petals, drawing back her atoms to pull her form together.

The rose petals shatter into dust, red specs that glitter like stars before vanishing.

And Ruby looks up into his solemn green eyes. They reflect the golden light of the fireflies in the air, beautiful and soulful, in spite of the wounds on his face. And it hurts, this reminder of things he shouldn’t have experienced, things she still dreams she could’ve helped prevent if she had been there at his side.

But Ruby hadn’t even realised he’d been gone.

Tears stream down her cheeks. “I should’ve gone to you, too,” she whispers, unable to look away from the boy in front of her.

“It’s okay,” he says, crossing the distance to brush the tears from her eyes. “I came back to you instead, didn’t I?”

He leaves the ones wetting her cheeks.

Ruby finds a smile for him. “You did.”

Oscar’s smile is soft gold, is a fire in a hearth on a winter night, the kind first rays of a rising sun, and he banishes the cold from her heart, from her soul. The chill that clung to her skin vanishes like a phantom on an invisible wind.

“And I always will.”

The vow, solemn as a knight’s, as a king’s, softens something in her, something that had trembled and hidden from her view since a warm evening in the summer. And Ruby feels all the overwhelming weight of the emotion for what it is. More than affection. More than attachment. Her power and her light.

It doesn’t scare her.

It gives her courage to finally reach across the distance.

They have tried. Tried a million times. They have rejected each other and run away from each other, fought, disagreed, distrusted each other and sided in spite with people the other didn’t like and couldn’t trust. He has pushed her hand away and she has ignored his reaching for her.

But here in the quiet, undisturbed, with nothing to illuminate the distance between them than tiny, warm specs of light, there is nothing to stand in her way than her own heart.

And all Ruby wants to do, all her heart is beating for in this passing moment, is to touch him, to feel his existence, his life, real and solid, under the pads of her fingers.

But as she finally, finally comes in contact with him, feels the first brush of skin against skin, Oscar’s eyes widen with terror and his cheek vanishes from under her hand.

The lights die.

Rejection.

It slams into her powerfully and with all the force of a broken heart. Before she can stop to think, to truly comprehend the fear moving him, loneliness is all she feels. It overwhelms her, for a single moment in the darkness.

It hurts.

More than it has ever hurt her before.

Until she feels his hand, tightening desperately around her wrist, begging her to stay. Until she can see through the darkness. Until her brain catches up to his expression.

Ruby’s eyes fall on the signs of violent possession on his cheeks.

“She touched you like this, didn’t she?”

Anger, cold and vicious, dances in her chest like silver fire. How dare Salem hurt him, how dare she touch him and take away his carefree relationship to affection? How could she corrupt Oscar’s relationship to love and care with her destruction and her hatred?

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, voice hoarse and regretful. He looks down, full of guilt and pain and disappointment. “I would never re—“

“No,” Ruby admonishes quietly, softly.

Even in this, she will be the light to chase away Salem’s shadows. Even in this she will show him that love is something worth trusting in, something he doesn’t have to be afraid to open his eyes to and face with his heart.

More than destruction, more than lightning, love is the charm that turn dreams to reality, affection is what makes the world a better place. And she won’t let him forget that, she won’t let Salem chase that truth away and trap him in darkness.

“Ruby, I—“ he begins, reaching up to catch her other hand, to stop her. He trembles at her fierceness.

But Ruby’s smile cuts him off. As if she had ever planned anything but being absolutely gentle with him.

“There are other ways to show affection,” she reminds him.

Oscar catches a breath at her words, his eyes dancing with constellations and his fingers slip from her wrist so Ruby can lift her hands to careful run them over his temples. He is beautiful, so beautiful, this kind, fragile boy in her grasp. His hair is soft as she brushes her fingers into it, pushing aside his fringe so she can kiss his forehead.

All she wants is to chase away the darkness in his heart, to steal him from the grasp of monsters, back to the light where he belongs, smiling, laughing, but as Oscar exhales a trembling breath, relaxing under her touch, trusting her completely, Ruby’s own heart soars, her emotions getting the better of her.

And her eyes flutter closed.

She lets her lips trail down over his brow, kissing his closed eyelids and his nose--the freckles grow like stars in her mind. Her nose follows the path of her lips, the tip brushing along the bridge of his nose, before she pulls back, resting her forehead against his.

The fireflies have reawakened when she opens her eyes, throwing a pink light across his cheeks, making his blush glow crimson under the tan. But his eyes are dancing with simple joy, and it catches her, catches her heart, and silly like children full of dreams, they begin to giggle at the same time. Breathless and close, they grasp onto each other, hands catching elbows and shoulders and waists, faces still so close, so painfully close that she can feel his laugh like a lover’s caress against her skin.

“Thank you,” he murmurs. And something in his face changes, the light shifts there, unmistakably to an emotion she doesn’t immediately recognise, caught up in sweet emotions. “You’re right as always.”

It’s only too late that Ruby realises it is fey mischief she sees in Oscar Pine’s green eyes.

Wide palms follow the column up her throat to grasp in the red threads that is her short hair and pulls her in, locking his lips with hers and stealing her gasp of surprise.

The one time Ruby had caught herself, embarrassed, flustered, imagining what kissing Oscar would be like, she had imagined it as a gentle summer rain, or spring sunlight. She had imagined a lighthearted, soft caress against her skin, had imagined kindness over desire, and butterfly touches, so light she could barely feel them.

Sweet, is the first word that comes to mind when she thinks about Oscar: a little prince full of kindness and courtesy.

But Ruby had forgotten, as she so often does, that there is something intense about Oscar, a focus on what he wants and what he does that never breaks and consumes everything around him, draws you in like a black hole of gravity that never relinquishes its hold on you.

It catches her now, like a summer storm, lightning running rampant in her veins and making her heart pound in her chest like thunder.

And yet it is mixed with that sweetness that is true to Oscar, and chasing after that, transgressing his lead and leaning into the kiss, pulling him closer, is what makes her forget that they are both shy and young, and that this is going to be very difficult to explain tomorrow. It is the sweet intensity of Oscar Pine that makes her forget the world, the future, the weight they both carry, and focus, for the first time, truly, on life in the present.

When he pulls back to catch his breath, she follows him, pecking his lips once before retreating. But this time he copies her, following her across the distance to peck her lips in return.

And they’re back to laughing.

Oscar’s fingers trail from her throat, along the underside of her jaw, drawing lines that burn along her skin, and Ruby shivers pleasantly, her eyes fluttering closed again at the touch.

Her heart is a wonderful, chaotic mess at the moment, full of happy emotion and overwhelming attachments, longing that has been answered with enthusiasm. She has never quite felt like _this_ before, and she wants to chase it all the way to fall into this boy, this beautiful boy, to meld their bones and souls together so no one will be able to tell where one heart begins and the other one ends.

“Ruby?”

But reality draws her back in, pulls her to the world once more, and as she looks at him, sees him, she sees the bruises and the hurts, the marks of exhaustion and pain around his pretty green eyes.

The marks on his cheeks remind her that he is not hers to own. He should always be free to soar in the sky.

Ruby smiles and leans forwards to kiss his jaw. “Yes?”

When she leans back on her haunches his face has flared in a blush.

And Ruby’s smile widens.

She doesn’t need to own him, to meld her body to his and never let him go. All she needs is to help him, to guide him to all his feathers, so that one day he will truly be able to fly free in the sky once more, with no shadows to hold him down.

“I…” he hesitates, looks away, and the smile washes off his face—real nerves intruding beyond the giddy shyness they had both shared in only a moment ago. But then he steels himself and looks back at her, his eyes stern with stubborn determination. “I’ve been meaning to say since we got back; I’m not going anywhere.

“I kept thinking about it while trapped by her,” he explains, his words coming faster and faster. “About how I got distracted, how I got jealous without needing to feel threatened. I— I punished you, and pushed you away, when I should have been supporting you. And I’m sorry.”

“Oscar,” Ruby begins, reaching for him. “You don’t—“

He snatches her hand out of the air, almost faster than she can see. “Yes, I need to,” he argues, counters her again. “I’m not going to go anywhere. No matter what I am going to be right here, by your side. No matter how many times I’m taken, no matter how many times I fall, I’ll keep coming back.”

They tremble through her, his words, this promise, like something she has heard before. Like opening a door, or seeing a door thrown open, to a smile and a hug, to the joy of having that most precious person returned to you, to sunshine stealing all your tears and warming your skin.

She knows that he had seen; it echoes in his words now. _Just because we’re working in different groups, doesn’t mean she’s divided us._ The promise he had made then.

He had seen the loneliness, the darkness that had begun to swallow her.

And the ridiculous thought had entered Ruby’s head, that he had blown up Salem, blown up Atlas, to get back to her.

She smiles, about to banish the sentiment.

But then Oscar bows his head over her hand and presses his forehead gently against her wrist—a knight’s vow—a king’s declaration. And it steals Ruby’s breath, her thought, aware for the first time, that his words sound like a song whispered in the Forest of Forever Fall, like a promise.

 _I love you_.

And for a moment, for a passing moment, she sees the path home disintegrate, shatter and scatter like golden rose petals, until all that is left is the boy before her, the beautiful boy that had become the home she’d tried to return to before she had ever realised it.

When Oscar looks up, his solemn expression falls away and he smiles indulgently. “Why are you crying?”

Ruby startles, pulling away.

But Oscar’s hand tightens around hers and she frowns at him briefly in confusion. He raises an eyebrow as if in challenge, as if to ask if she’s going to run away from him again.

And Ruby laughs.

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” she says, throwing her arms around his him and burying her face in his neck. “We’re both here. That’s all that matters.”

“Until the end,” he promises again, pulling her closer.

Ruby shakes her head. “Beyond the end.”

If Oscar Pine is her destiny, then she will grasp that red thread and follow it all the way to the dream beyond the last page, she will take his hand and they will walk the path until they are home, until there are no monsters or gods left, until the promise of hope has been fulfilled.

”To a new world.”

**Author's Note:**

> Welp it's been a while since I've written a completed RG fic, but I finally feel like I know where the characters are going again so here we are!
> 
> Also I want to add that the kiss was not intended on my part, but Oscar insisted most vehemently--even if I left the fic and came back a few hours later. Stubborn boy.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading this!  
> I hope you enjoyed it! --and if you did please do leave your thoughts, I would love to hear them :D


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